


The Baker King of Camelot

by the_seaworthy_muffin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: A little cameo by the knights later on, Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), Arthur opens a bakery, Banter, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fluff, Humor, Immortality, Kissing, M/M, Modern Era, POV Outsider, and confuses the shite out of a student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28647450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_seaworthy_muffin/pseuds/the_seaworthy_muffin
Summary: There’s a café in the corner between Lance’s school and the market. It’s run-down but cozy, with a truly obscene amount of dragon decorations; it was once known as the worst café in a five-kilometer radius of the school, even though it’s improved in leaps and bounds since then; and, most importantly: it’s run by a bloke who calls himself King Arthur.Or: Arthur opens a café after he Returns from Avalon and confuses the hell out of a local student. Featuring banter, loads of Merthur fluff, lots of confusion, Lance the student (who’s quite different from Lance the knight, mind you)- and, near the very end, a very teary reunion.
Relationships: Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) & Original Male Character(s), Merlin (Merlin) & Original Male Character(s), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 135





	The Baker King of Camelot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arcturus7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcturus7/gifts).



> For arcturus7 - Here's the wacky bakery story we'd chatted about in the comments! I'm so sorry for not having replied to your comment, but I'd wanted this little thing to be a surprise. Please forgive me? :) All of your beautiful comments on my Merthur Week prompt fills made me so unbearably happy, and this is my way of giving a huge Thank You! The story sort of got away from me near the end and mutated into something a little different from what I'd intended, but hopefully it isn't too horrible. :O  
> *  
> Credit for the idea of Arthur being offended because he thought his nose looked large in portraits goes to Katherynefromphilly and her beautiful We Begin Again 'verse!   
> Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.  
> I own nothing but Lance the student and the plot, but really, they both have a mind of their own, so not sure if that counts either. :D

1.

There’s a little café nestled in the corner between Lance’s school and the market. It’s run-down but cozy, somewhere you’d want to spend a rainy afternoon tucked away in, if you manage to get over the truly obscene amount of dragon ornaments that are strung all over the place. It had once been listed as the worst café within a five-kilometer radius of the school, but it’s grown better over the year, in bits and pieces, and now it does a mean biscotti that reminds Lance a lot of his late gran’s. Oh, there are plenty of other quirks besides- the way the carved wooden dragon on the doorknob actually grins at Lance when he passes by, those faint twinkling fairy-lights that don’t quite sit within the bounds of technological plausibility, the dangerously authentic-looking weapons that adorn the walls.

But, most importantly: it’s run by a bloke who calls himself King Arthur.

Lance had almost choked on his coffee (halfway through the year, so the flavor had still been fixed somewhere between barely edible and perhaps-alright.) when he’d found out the name of Arthur’s dark-haired friend, slim as a whippet and dangerously cheerful.

“Arthur and Merlin,” he’d said, disbelieving. “And your shop’s named Camelot- are you sure you hadn’t meant to, I don’t know, run a little medieval reenactment or something?”

“Merlin _is_ my real name, I’ll have you know,” Merlin had said, sliding into the chair across from him. “To be honest, I hadn’t known I’d become this famous back then, either.”

Lance blinked at him. Merlin winked right back.

“I have my secrets,” he’d said, somehow managing to pull off a look both enigmatic and cheery. And that had been that.

_Camelot Coffee_ is full of all kinds of little quirks, like a small wacky oasis in the craziness that is city life these days. But Lance is fairly confident that he’s the only one who’s stuck around long enough to find them, because more often than not he’s the only one at the café, busy morning hours notwithstanding.

It’s a miracle the owners hadn’t been forced to go out of business yet, but Lance doesn’t linger on it overmuch, simply tacking it onto the growing list that is _Camelot_ ’s eccentricities.

It all started with a bet, as all things do.

2.

The first time Lance had visited _Camelot Coffee_ , he had been exceedingly nervous. When drinking a single cup of coffee becomes the subject of a five-pound bet, there’s bound to be _something_ terrifyingly wrong about the drink. Especially when the said bet is being made by poor starving students.

“Your name is Lancelot,” the owner exclaimed incredulously, as soon as he’d gotten sight of Lance’s obnoxious name badge his friend had pestered him into attaching to his bag. “I used to know a Lancelot.”

“You did?” Lance asked, trying very hard not too seem too discomfited. The owner was very objectively fit, for one, tendons standing out strong against tanned forearms, and Lance happened to be an art student whose idea of strenuous exercise consisted of late-night Tesco runs. Also, Lance figured that offending a bloke who forced him to provide a detailed run-down of his drinking experience so he could ‘take notes for further improvement’ was not a Good Idea. He even had a notepad for that exact purpose, and Lance wasn’t sure whether to feel horrified or horrifiedly intrigued.

“I’m not _lying,_ ” the owner snapped back, with that air of offended nobility everywhere. He did have a regal jaw-line, dusted lightly with a few day’s growth of stubble. “He was a man worthier than any other. You ought to be honored for your name.”

“Well. Umm.” Lance felt his mind leaning towards horrifiedly intrigued. “Thanks? I’ll be sure to- let my mother know?”

“Make sure you do,” the owner had sniffed. He had a strangely archaic way of phrasing things, Lance thought halfheartedly. And he wore his cheap t-shirt like a royal cloak.

Banished royalty, maybe? It might explain quite a few things, although Lance figured he’d have a lot of better things to do if he happened to be ex-royalty. At least he wouldn’t have opened a coffee shop, of all things. Especially when the coffee actually lived up to its horrifying name.

Lance left, discreetly trying to wipe the foul taste of burnt coffee bean from his mouth, pondering all this and a dozen more.

The next time he went back, out of a sense of lingering curiosity, the owner had been waiting for him with an extra cup and a question.

“Did you tell your mother?” he said, fixing Lance with a blue-eyed stare that foretold all sorts of nasty things should he lie.

“No,” he said, truthfully. The owner’s expression darkened. “But- I mean, maybe you ought to know Lancelot actually is a pretty widespread name now? You could probably find half a dozen Lance’s in this town alone.”

“Absurd.” The owner shook his head, ridiculously affronted. “Bandying about worthy names like that. Now you’re going to tell me there are half a dozen Arthurs running around, too?”

Lance bit his lip. “Maybe? There’s one in my class, at least……”

The owner sniffed. “Well. Can’t help it if the people want to take the name of a great king, can I?”

“Bit of a King Arthur enthusiast, aren’t you?” Lance said, trying very hard not to laugh. He had a feeling it wouldn’t go down very well. The owner raised an enigmatic eyebrow.

“Well, you could say that, I suppose. Now, can’t let that get to waste- do help yourself.”

Lance braced himself and drank. And blinked. The coffee was actually a mite better; leaning more towards barely edible than its previous state of eldritch horror. He drank some more.

“I _told_ you taking notes would help,” the owner declared, smugness writ across every line of his face.

And that was when Lance’s insatiable curiosity kicked in, and he knew that he wouldn’t be leaving the café for a long, long while after that.

He didn’t end up regretting it very much.

3.

If you ask anyone who knows Lance, they’ll tell you he’s an interfering busybody, no question about that. Well, he happens to think of it as insatiable curiosity (and he isn’t really harming anyone, is he?) – and its current fixation happens to be the enigmatic owner of _Camelot_ and his friend.

Arthur and Merlin are strange, strange men, almost like ancient relics yanked out of history books and plopped mercilessly into the modern world. Sometimes it’s that look Arthur gets in his eyes, looking at the daggers and maces and pennants hung all around the small café like so many Christmas baubles, yearning and pain and regret and faint, soft resignation all rolled into one. Sometimes it’s the way the very air around Merlin seems to be alive, crackling across his pale skin, over the pale slant of his cheekbones, that small terrifying moment when a drunk bloke had stumbled in and started smashing things left and right when he was informed that no, it wasn’t a _bar_ , and no, they didn’t have any whiskey handy for his perusal.

The man had been escorted out by a very terrifyingly calm Merlin, and hadn’t shown up since. Lance has a feeling that for all that Merlin looks utterly unassuming, cheery and smiling and whippet-thin, he isn’t one to cross. (He’s come to trust in his instincts, especially after that little incident back in grade school with his art teacher, a shrew, and lots and lots of screaming.)

But more often than not, it’s the way they _look_ at each other.

For all that Arthur harasses Merlin within an inch of his life, bossing him about with groaned _Mer_ lins and sighs and his characteristic notepad, the way he looks at Merlin when he thinks the other man isn’t watching is nothing short of heartbreakingly tender. Lance doesn’t pride himself for his sentimentality, really, but when he catches those little head-ruffles Arthur seems to think Merlin doesn’t notice, those half-hearted brushes of hand against hand, he wants to squeal and cry and yell at them to get _on_ with it already.

(He doesn’t, because those throwing daggers do look dangerously sharp, and he has a creeping notion that Arthur has extensive knowledge of how to use them against people who offend him.)

And the way Merlin looks at Arthur in return- like he’s the very center of his world, like there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Arthur. He doesn’t say it out loud, of course, insulting Arthur on his baking and coffee-making skills (which are truly abysmal, if Lance may say so) and calling him a clotpole and dollop-head and a bunch of other invented insults to boot. But when Arthur needs him for something, even if it’s something as trivial as a spider in the kitchen, he’s always on his way, even as he complains, not one second of hesitation.

It isn’t the sort of bond that forms between _anyone_ , and Lance feels that they could face certain death together and walk out with smiling faces. Hell, with Arthur’s haughty regality and Merlin’s understated cheer, they could take on the Zombie Appocalypse with no-one any wiser.

But they never give the slightest indication about the status of their relationship, _together_ or otherwise, and it’s driving Lance crazy.

His friends poke fun at him, telling him it’s creepy how obsessed he is with a bunch of total strangers, but Lance is just far to hopelessly gone and- well, though he doesn’t really swing that way, he’ll stop believing in true love this instant if Merlin and Arthur don’t get together quick. And by that he means _quick_.

It’s ridiculous how the situation resolves itself.

Lance pops into the café one evening five minutes before opening time, because it’s raining cats and dogs outside and he does think that he’s struck up a decent enough friendship with the owner(s) so as not to be kicked out onto the street. It’s eerily quiet, almost as if even the furniture is humming in anticipation, and Lance holds his breath, wringing out one sopping-wet sleeve.

And then he sees it.

Arthur and Merlin in one of the booths, kissing.

It’s far from tame, really, Merlin almost sitting on Arthur’s lap, Arthur’s strong fingers twisting into Merlin’s riot of black curls and _tugging_. Merlin lets out a small noise, almost a whimper, and his eyes under those lashes- is that gold he’s seeing?

He must have ended up making the slightest of noises, because Arthur’s head snaps around, hand reaching instinctively for a dagger on the wall.

And then flushes to the roots of his hair when he sees Lance, trying valiantly not to slip into that shite-eating grin that’s threatening to split his face in half.

“Not a word,” he warns, dangerously regal even in his thoroughly debauched state. Merlin simply laughs, blue eyes twinkling a little in the wake of the fairy-lights strung up all around the room, and slips an arm around Arthur’s waist.

“Sure, Sire,” Lance replies happily, and though he’d meant it as a good-natured jibe, it comes out a lot more sincerely than he’d thought.

4.

If you really look, there are a lot of clues that indicate Arthur and Merlin don’t really have a conventional background. One of these is the Panic.

Lance hadn’t even been aware of it until one fateful afternoon deep into November.

He’d headed over to the café as usual, because it had become his routine to head over with his sketchbook and some pencils and happily sketch away in the corner while Arthur and Merlin bickered in the kitchen. He nearly had his head taken off by Merlin, who’d rushed out of the door with a wide-eyed look of utter panic that he hadn’t thought to ever associate with the exuberant, easy-going man he’d found him to be.

“Whoa, steady,” he’d said, adjusting his satchel so he could hold onto Merlin with both hands. “What’s the matter? Could I-“

“Arthur,” Merlin had gasped, clawing at Lance with shuddering breaths. “He- said he’d be back by four o’clock- can’t- _need to find him_ -“

There had been a strange edge to Merlin’s touch, almost like liquid electricity digging into his skin, and Merlin had looked near- _unhinged_ , breaking apart in his terror. The debacle had been settled once Arthur had returned with a bag full of groceries- (“I ran into an old woman who needed help, _Mer_ lin, I’m fine. I’m fine. I know, I should have told you; I’m…… alright, come over here, now. Right. I’m fine.)- but it had seared itself into Lance’s brain, like a particularly striking afterimage you couldn’t quite erase no matter what you did.

That was something more than fear. That had been pure, unadulterated _terror_.

Lance has a secret notebook where he writes all of his secret suspicions about the enigmatic couple, and he adds a new entry: spies. It makes sense, doesn’t it? That strange feeling of danger those two give off, how intimidating they can both be when they want to. Maybe they’ve retired after an operation gone wrong, and maybe they had been separated then, unable to know if each other were dead or alive. Maybe that’s where all that obsession about Arthurian myth came out, too; maybe they miss their old glamorous role-playing days.

Maybe the only reason Arthur’s coffee used to taste so terrible is that he’s more used to whipping up poisonous formulas to assassinate people. (It’s actually a lot better, now; it’s passed the barely-edible mark and is stubbornly making its way towards ‘actually pretty good’.)

The Spy Theory is the leading one until Arthur catches Lance scribbling in his notebook and breaks out into bursts of deep, throaty laughter.

“That- whatever made you think so? Merlin would make a _horrible_ spy; he’d probably botch up some groundbreaking operation just because he tripped over his own feet.”

“Oi! I heard that!” comes Merlin’s indignant shout from the kitchen.

“I meant you to,” Arthur shoots back, and a lot of indecipherable grumbling and snorting follows from Merlin.

“I’ll show you _tripping,_ ” Lance makes out. He shakes his head, exasperatedly fond. A firm X goes over his Spy Theory entry.

Well, but maybe- maybe……

5.

“We’ve set up a bet,” Merlin informs Lance. Lance blinks. “What kind of bet?”

“Whether you find out what we used to do in the past, in the end.” Arthur quips in, sliding into the seat beside Merlin’s. “Honestly, it’s been hilarious, wondering what you’d come up with next. Figured we might as well up the stakes.”

His expression is that of haughty amusement, of the sort only those truly entitled can pull off. Good person or not, that man really _can_ be ridiculously posh. Lance protests at once.

“Hey, I’ll have you know- I’ve actually put a lot of thought into a lot of those!”

“Really?” Merlin raises a brow that looks disturbingly alike to Arthur’s. “So that theory about aliens-“

“Ah, I remember,” Arthur says. “I was the lucky human, and you were some alien scout, right? Well, that’s absurd. Of course I’d be the one with awesome superpowers if it ever came down to that.”

Merlin makes a disgruntled snort and pokes Arthur in the ribs, hard.

Lance throws up his hands in exasperation. “Well, I can’t help but make conjectures, when you don’t _tell_ me! I mean, I understand you have your privacy, but……”

“But we did tell you. I am King Arthur of Camelot, and this is Merlin, my sorcerous manservant.”

“See why I can’t really take you seriously now?”

Merlin gives him a look like snow wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It’s unfair, really, how harmless he can make himself look. Like a stoat, maybe. A really fluffy, velvet-nosed stoat. Or something like that.

“No,” he says, lips twitching up at the edges. Lance just sighs and takes a bite of his scone.

(The food’s actually surprisingly good, now.)

6.

The moment Lance receives his end-of-term assignment topic, he thinks of Arthur and Merlin. They’re supposed to paint something in oil, with a topic of ‘Love from Legends’, and, well, Arthur and Merlin, get it? It _is_ a legend, after all, and he does think his professor is open-minded enough to accept more than heterosexual submissions. And he can’t think of a better model than Arthur and Merlin from _Camelot_.

He walks in on them in the middle of an argument.

“I told you it was Gwaine who cheated at dice,” Merlin is complaining, vehement.

“Oh, really, _Mer_ lin. And I’m supposed to believe that that Snake’s eye just rolled out by itself, _three times in a row_ -“

Gwaine? Gawain? Lance just shrugs, figuring that if he starts questioning all their little quirks, he won’t ever be able to concentrate on anything else. He pokes his head around the doorway.

“Did I come around at a bad moment?”

“No. Arthur here was just being unreasonable.”

“I’ll show you unreasonable,” Arthur snaps back, and it’s a total squabble after that.

The two are surprisingly fine with Lance’s request.

“Just make sure not to make my nose too big,” Arthur sniffs, shooting a look at Merlin. “This fool here painted me once, and you will not believe how hideously beak-like he made it.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know it was perfectly historically accurate-“

“You paint?” Lance asks, surprised. Merlin shrugs, bashful. “Here and there. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”

Merlin doesn’t really look much older than Lance, but he doesn’t comment.

“Just make sure to make Arthur look unrealistically handsome, and he’ll be fine,” Merlin adds, to Arthur’s chagrin and a hard poke to the ribs. Lance shrugs, retrieves his pencils, and gets to work.

7.

“You did _what_?” Lance exclaims, not quite believing what he’s hearing. He’d actually _liked_ this professor, because he’d been easygoing and nice (if a bit oily), and he’d seemed quite a bit more open-minded than most. But there is always such a thing as too much, and the fact that he’s shared Lance’s assignment to his internet forum without consulting him first is-

Well, it would suffice to say that Lance is _not happy_.

“Look,” Professor Cenred shrugs, giving him a look that says _what can I do?_ “I’m sure it won’t be much of a problem. It’s not like I posted their photos all over Facebook or anything, and the comments are actually quite good. It might be a chance for you to get into some commissions……”

“I don’t even _want_ commissions,” Lance groans, and wonders how best to bury a professor without getting caught. Of all the things……

.

Lance’s painting ends up becoming an internet sensation, and everything is most certainly _not_ fine.

“Gods, I am so sorry,” he groans, burying his face in his hands. “I tried to get him to take the photo off, and I pestered him into doing it, but someone must have saved a copy, because-“ he gestures helplessly at his phone, and the Tumblr post featuring in it.

19.3k reblogs, and twice as many likes.

Merlin whistles. “Well, that does seem like quite a lot.”

“I told you it’s my face that did it,” Arthur says, without one iota of shame. He looks smug as a cat that got the cream, and Lance doesn’t have the heart to tell him that for all his stunning good looks, Lance had actually rounded the nose down by quite a bit. “What did I say about listening to your king, _Mer_ lin?”

“That it’d get me dug into an early grave one day?” Merlin says, disgustingly chipper. Lance gapes at them.

“Well, aren’t you- worried?”

“Worried?” Merlin and Arthur echo, as if it’s the last thing that had crossed their mind.

“It’s a gross privacy breach,” Lance bites his lip, cursing himself for digging himself into a hole. But it is his responsibility, in a way, and he can’t just _not_ let them know the possible consequences because he doesn’t want his friends angry at him. “You might get a stalker, or- a mob, or something. You’ve become quite the celebrities.”

“Ah.” Merlin nods, sagely. “Well, your concern is touching,” a surprisingly warm smile that touches his cheekbones and warms up his entire face. “But we can take care of that. We’ve faced far worse, you see.”

Arthur nods along, gaze flitting to a particularly scary-looking broadsword that adorns the far wall.

Lance curses Professor Cenred with every pore of his being, and hopes very sincerely that Arthur isn’t thinking of running whoever comes after them with a sword.

He doesn’t want his friends, however wacky they are, to end up in jail, after all.

8.

Lance’s concerns come into fruition surprisingly fast. It’s just another Monday, and he’s on his way back to the café from his early shift at Burger King (it’s become almost like a second home to him now) when he’s cornered by a bunch of scary-looking people.

There’s a tall, lithe man who looks like an Adonis-version of Inigo Montoya from _the Princess Bride_ , wearing a disconcertingly noble expression that actually terrifies Lance a whole lot. There’s another giant of a man with arms like tree-trunks, A stern-looking man with red curls, another charming rogue with curls that wouldn’t look out of place in a shampoo commercial and a flirtatious grin. Still another man, with close-cropped hair and cinnamon skin.

Strangest of all, they’re all decked out in chain-mail, with things that look like- actual _swords_ by their hips.

Lance blinks.

The one with the noble smile steps a little closer.

“Hello,” he says. “I’m Lancelot.”

_Oh._ “Well, I am, too,” Lance replies, clutching his sack a little closer. “Umm- nice to meet you?”

The other Lancelot shakes his hand beatifically. He shows Lance a mobile, screen frozen at a captured picture of his doomed Art Project. Arthur’s golden smile almost looks like it’s taunting him.

“We’re looking for these people,” the-other-Lance goes on, voice calm and gracious and utterly terrifying. “Can you tell me where they may be?”

The other men shift excitedly, muttering amongst themselves in what sounds like a foreign language. Lance panics.

_Oh, shite, I should have known it would come down to something like this. Now I’ve gone and actually drawn something so decent that these wonky medieval enthusiasts want to go kidnap my friends_.

Lance would like to pride himself on having at least some guts, thank you, and he isn’t about to sell his friends off in a flash like that, especially when the whole debacle is pretty much his own fault.

“That’s private information,” he says, with all the courage he can muster.

The Curls’ (at least, that’s what Lance decided to call the curly-haired redhead in his mind) had strays towards his scabbard. Lance gulps. Shampoo-commercial-man puts a warning hand on the other man’s arm.

“Well,” the other Lance says. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you, then. Thank you for your time.”

Lance barely says his goodbyes before he’s sprinting in another direction at full tilt.

9.

Lance makes sure to warn Merlin and Arthur right away, but they’re exasperatingly unconcerned as always. Lance toys with the idea of calling the police and requesting protection for them, just in case, but throws it away before long- it doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing you’d do without permission, and Lance may be many things but he likes to think of himself as at least a halfway decent human being.

Instead, what does happen is that Lance is roped into an impromptu baking lesson.

“You can’t _bake,_ ” Arthur exclaims with barely disguised disdain. “How can you not be able to bake?”

“Well, because I’m not an aspiring baker?” Lance says, at loss for words. He’d had no idea Arthur was so passionate about baking. “And, well……”

He flounders about to find a way to tell Arthur that he wasn’t exactly the shining epitome of baker-dom either, back when the café had still been new. Arthur huffs, as if he has a good idea of what Lance had been about to say.

“I,” he declares, “had to start from scratch, as well. But see now? I am quite the accomplished baker, you see.”

Lance has to admit Arthur’s baking has actually improved by quite a bit. And his biscotti is quite good, if he may say so himself.

“Those under my command do not _give up_.”

“But why did you open a café anyway, if you hadn’t learnt baking yet?”

Merlin snorts from where he’d been stirring a bowl of something wholesome and cinnamon-scented.

“That’s what I told him,” he says. “But does the great King Arthur listen? _No_ , I’m just a lowly servant, you see……”

Lance is beginning to get the creeping suspicion that their charade may actually not be as much fiction as he’d once suspected. It’s a mind-shattering thought, so he just shakes his head and lets Arthur drag him into the kitchen.

Lance’s baking lesson results in a pan of edible-looking cookies, if a bit burnt. It’s the result of countless thwacks on the head with a ladle, not to mention half a day of being yelled commands at like a green cadet down in the army, and Lance has the feeling that he might actually cry if they end up tasting horrible.

They’re surprisingly good, though, and Merlin crinkles his eyes in that infectious grin of his as he steals a couple from right under Lance’s nose.

“Hey,” Lance objects through his exhausted haze. Merlin smiles a little and pulls him a daisy from behind his ear. Arthur ruffles Merlin’s hair, fond.

Lance is home when he realizes that he still hasn’t addressed the problem of Arthur and Merlin’s armored stalkers.

It can’t be anything too horribly bad- could it?

10.

Lance has the strangest suspicion that he’s being followed the next day, as he makes his way towards _Camelot_. Maybe it’s that he’s imagining it all, but a faint chime like steel sliding against steel, there, a flash of sun on metal, there……

He’s pretty sure his stress has driven him paranoid until he finally arrives at the café, and a bunch of armored men filter out from the shrubbery.

They’re filthy, as if they’ve spent the night outdoors, and leaves are sticking out of their hair. Lance starts and near-shouts, “ _You!_ ”

The other Lance steps forward, hands out, face set in apologetic, placating lines. “Forgive us,” he says, and he really does look put-together and reasonable, except now Lance is aware of the unfortunate fact that he’s a creepy stalker and isn’t quite ready to listen to anything that he says. “We didn’t have any choice- we _had_ to find them, you see-“

“I _told_ you you ought to leave well enough alone,” Lance says, annoyed and a little scared. “How would you feel if a bunch of guys showed up on your doorstep in full armor?”

Merlin, likely roused by the clamor outside, pokes his head through the door. His hair is disheveled, like he’s rolled straight out of bed, and there’s a strand that’s sticking edgewise up from his nest of inky curls. But all that doesn’t detract from the intimidating air he manages to pull off, something coiling thick and electric through the air, setting all the little hairs on Lance’s arm standing.

Then he sees the men in armor, and his eyes grow wide. There’s a clang as he drops whatever he’d been holding to the floor.

“Arthur,” he says, voice shaking, “I think you’d like to see this.”

The other Lancelot’s eyes are watering, and all the other blokes seem to be trembling in anticipation, too. Lance watches, gob-smacked, as Arthur rushes out of the kitchen in his flour-dusted apron and skids to a halt in front of the other men.

“Leon,” he says, voice cracking a little. It’s the most emotional Lance has ever seen him. “Percival. Gwaine. Lancelot. Elyan.”

There’s a suspicious sheen to his eyes, normally so steady, and the hand that’s grasping the door has turned white. He swallows, and his shoulders straighten, unfolding up and back, and the figure he cuts is almost like the statues of kings of old.

Merlin steps up behind him, eyes shining with an indescribable, tentative joy, and smiles.

The men go down on their knees as one, bowing their head. The moment almost seems sacred, somehow, something an outsider ought not to be privy too. Merlin turns to look at Lance, questioning, and he shakes his head and gives the other man a small smile. Yes, definitely a private moment.

Lancelot, Percival, Gwaine or Gawain or whoever he is.

He knows those names, doesn’t he?

Lance shakes his head as he discreetly removes himself from the scene, a wondering smile teasing at the edges of his mouth. The king of Camelot and his Sorcerer indeed.

Maybe- maybe legends are a lot truer than he’d ever thought they’d be.

_[The End]_

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr! You can find me by the-seaworthy-muffin.  
> It's still severely under-decorated, because I want to be patient and use my own artwork to decorate, but it's under construction...... and anyone is welcome to drop by and yell at me about Merthur or request fic or do a bunch of other stuff. Though if you say hi through the ask function, it may become open for all to see, because I only know how to reply in a public fashion- so be wary of that? I'll make sure to respect your wishes if you say you don't need a reply and wish whatever message to stay private, though.  
> Hope you enjoyed reading, and stay happy&safe!!


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